Boy Meets Girl:  The Break
by Tracie1
Summary: After their break-up, how will Marty cope?  Fluff and angst all rolled into one!  Had to bump the rating up due to some cursing. Set in the normal universe.


**Author's Notes:**

When I wrote Boy Meets Girl, I never meant for it to have a sequel. Then, I hooked up with my high school boyfriend after nine years apart. Then, we broke up after five months. Yeah, ouch. The break-up phone call in this story was inspired by the call I received, in fact. I wrote this in a fit of psyche purging and debated on whether or not to post it. Eventually, I decided to post it on my former site and, yeah, he read it. And we are still friends. He knows too much. LOL!

**Disclaimer: **Do not own the canon characters, blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I am going to have this disclaimer on a CTRL C and CTRL V basis.

**Boy Meets Girl 2: The Break**

The McFly House

Hill Valley, California

Thursday, August 30, 1984

1:45 p.m.

Marty McFly sat on his bed, thumbing through an issue of _Rolling Stone_ and relishing one of the last moments of his summer vacation. On Monday, he would be starting his junior year of high school. The monotonous cycle of classes, homework and detentions that lay before him appeared endless. The only thing that made the whole experience seem bearable was that his girlfriend of two years, Jennifer Parker, would be by his side.

They had been going steady for nearly two full years and Marty easily imagined spending the rest of his life with her. He believed that he had found his true love, his soul mate, and felt lucky that he hadn't had to search his whole life for her.

The telephone rang, startling Marty out of his semi-meditative state. He picked up the receiver. "Hello."

"Hello, Marty," Jennifer's voice replied.

_Well, speak of the devil._ "Hey, beautiful. What's up?"

"We need to talk, Marty," Jennifer said, her voice strained.

Every red flag in Marty's head went up with that sentence. "What's wrong?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "This is hard for me to say."

"What is it, Jennifer?" Marty asked. His body tensed as he awaited Jennifer's reply.

"Marty, I've been thinking it over and I've decided that maybe we need a break. You know, we should stop seeing each other for awhile."

Marty almost dropped the receiver in his shock. "What? Why?"

"We're in a rut. I think that a break would us some good." Jennifer's voice lost some of the strain, almost like she sounded relieved for have gotten that off her chest.

Marty's mind reeled dizzyingly. Since when were they in a rut? The two had gone out on a date the night before and everything was fine. At least, Marty had thought so. Okay, so they had gotten into a little spat about the possibility of "Everytime You Go Away" being a bit overplayed on the radio, but Marty didn't think that his negative viewpoint of Jennifer's favorite song warranted a break-up. Frantically, he searched his mind for something he could have done to anger her, but he came up with nothing.

"Marty, are you still there?" Jennifer asked.

"Yeah," Marty replied dully.

"I mean, we've been together so long, that it would do us good to see other people. This way, we'll know for sure whether we're meant to be together. Our relationship is stagnating, Marty. Besides, we don't have as much in common as we did when we were freshmen if last night was any indication. That wasn't the first petty fight that we ever had."

_Oh man,_ Marty thought. _She really is using that stupid argument against me._ Unable to find his voice to retort, Marty could only listen in hurt bewilderment as Jennifer continued to relay to him all the reasons why she thought their relationship needed a hiatus. She sounded rushed as if she feared losing her nerve before she said her piece.

"I really think this is for the best," Jennifer concluded. "How do you feel, Marty?"

_Do I even have a choice?_ Jennifer sounded pretty sure of herself and Marty felt that any argument he had to offer her would fall upon deaf ears. It was apparent to him that he had valued their relationship more than she did. He was shocked and stung by Jennifer's revelation, but there was another emotion slowly rising to the surface. Anger.

"Yeah, sure," Marty said in a flat voice. "I guess my opinion really doesn't matter anyway since you've already made up your mind that we shouldn't be together."

"I'm not saying that we she shouldn't be together. I'm just saying that we need a break from each other. "You don't think this is a good idea?" Jennifer's voice started to falter once more.

"Oh, I think this is a fantastic idea!" Marty said, his voice rising. "I find it even better that you couldn't be bothered to discuss your feelings with me before dropping this bomb!"

"Marty, I've been giving this a lot of thought over the past few weeks. Why can't you see where I'm coming from on this?"

"Maybe because you've had a few weeks to let this all sink in and you've only given me a few minutes! Jesus, Jennifer, did you have any consideration for my feelings on this matter? You didn't think this would hurt me? No. You only thought of yourself and what you wanted."

"Marty-," Jennifer began. She sounded as if she were about to cry.

"Save it, Jen," Marty said. "I thought we were doing great, but if you think our relationship is so doomed, then fine. Just remember there's no turning back."

"Goodbye, Marty," Jennifer said softly. A soft click sounded as she hung up.

Marty slammed the phone receiver on its cradle. Part of him just wanted to scream until he was hoarse and another part just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. Mostly, though, he felt numb as all of his present awareness and concerns faded away. Had he been looking at their relationship through rose-tinted glasses all this time? Was Jennifer's version of their time together the true reality? Marty felt like the world's biggest fool for thinking that there could have ever been a future between them. In the space of fifteen minutes he had gone from feeling on top of the world to having his world turned upside down (lower than shit).

His telephone rang again, ripping him from his dark thoughts. Marty ignored it as it rang repeatedly and finally fell silent. Marty thought he had gotten his wish to be left alone, but no such luck.

"Marty, phone for you!" his sister Linda yelled through the door. "You can start answering your own calls. I'm not your secretary."

Marty sighed as he picked up his phone. He mentally vowed to pay his sister back for this injustice as he silently cursed the rest of the world for going on as usual. "Hello," he said his voice barely louder than a whisper. Despite his foul mood, he couldn't help but hope, even a little, that Jennifer might be calling to make up.

"Marty?" said a voice that was decidedly not Jennifer's.

"Oh hey, Doc. What's up?"

"You were supposed to be here over an hour ago to help me in the lab," Doc said. "You didn't forget, did you?"

Marty looked at his clock. It said 3:45. Had he really been in a mental stupor all this time? "Sorry, Doc, something came up," he said, hoping that his excuse wasn't giving too much away. He didn't feel like fielding any questions from Doc about his welfare.

"Marty are you okay?" Doc inquired. "You don't sound quite like yourself."

There was a pause. "I'm a real happy camper, Doc," Marty replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "I'll be right over." He hung up the phone without saying goodbye to his friend. He really wasn't in the mood to work, but at least Doc's lab promised him a distraction from dwelling on his new single status.

As he stood up, he glanced over at a framed school picture of Jennifer taken the previous autumn. He picked it up from its place on the shelf above his bed and looked at it for a long moment. The anger and despair he felt toward her boiled over and he flung the portrait at the wall. The glass shattered and the impact bent a corner of the metal frame.

_Two years of my life for nothing,_ Marty thought as he grabbed his skateboard and left.

He arrived at Doc's place about twenty minutes later. He opened the gate and walked up to the door. He was poised to knock when the door opened and Doc's concerned face peered out.

"I was worried about you," he said and he stepped aside to let Marty in. "When you didn't show up earlier and you didn't call, I thought that maybe you had been in some sort of accident on your way over here."

Marty tried not to roll his eyes, but he couldn't deal with Doc's overprotective crap right now. "Sorry, Doc," Marty said. "I told you I got wrapped up in something."

Doc studied Marty for a moment with a skeptical expression that told him he didn't buy his lame excuse. "Is there something that you want to talk about?" Doc asked.

"No," Marty said. "I'd rather just forget about it."

Doc frowned, but he didn't press the issue, much to Marty's relief. "Get me a Phillips screwdriver, Marty. I need to make an adjustment here," he said instead, as he turned and walked to his worktable.

Marty did as he was asked. The only sounds in the room for a few minutes were Einstein's snoring and the ticking of Doc's many clocks. Marty didn't feel like making small talk and Doc was busy. Marty concentrated all of his energy into watching Doc fiddle with his contraption, some sort of automatic food preparer that looked more like a heap of metal, and tried to keep his mind off his troubles. If he could get through this afternoon without talking, he would be okay.

"That should do it," Doc muttered as he gave one last twist. He handed the tool back to Marty and he flipped a switch. The device roared to life for all of a second before sputtering to its death.

"Well, it's an improvement," Doc said, frowning. "At least it isn't smoking and bursting into flames anymore. "I'll need that screwdriver back, Marty. Oh, and grab the wrench, too."

Marty handed the tools to his mentor and again watched with half-hearted interest while Doc operated on the innards of his invention.

"You're rather quiet today," Doc said, not looking up from his close work.

Marty shrugged, though Doc couldn't see the gesture. "There's nothing exciting to talk about, I guess," he lied.

"Damn it!" Doc bellowed, causing Marty to jump. Doc looked up and gave his friend a half smile. "Sorry, but that wasn't directed at you. Marty, you might as well hand me the entire tool box," he said with an exasperated sigh. "I have a feeling I'm going to need a little of everything."

"Did you fry it?" Marty asked as he picked up the box to bring it around to the other side of the table. It was so heavy that he had to lift it with both arms. If he didn't know better, he would swear that Doc kept cement blocks in that thing.

"I think that in this case it was a matter of scientific suicide." Doc set the device down on the table with a sigh. "I almost forgot to ask. How was your date with Jennifer last night?"

Caught off guard by the question and his emotions, Marty dropped the tool box on the floor. The clamor woke Einstein who immediately started barking. Doc's head snapped up and he clutched his heart, having been scared out of about ten years of his life.

"Christ, Doc, I'm sorry!" Marty exclaimed as he knelt down to pick up the scattered tools.

"Its okay, Marty," Doc said, regaining his composure. "Spilled tools are nothing to get upset over."

Marty didn't reply. He was afraid if he opened his mouth again that his emotions would spill over. Concerned, Doc crouched down to Marty's level. "Are you sure that there isn't anything you want to talk about, Marty?"

Marty didn't respond, but continued his hasty cleanup if the mess he had made. He wouldn't even look Doc in the eye, afraid that his mentor would see the tears forming in his eyes. He winced as Doc grabbed his arm and held firm. Marty finally risked a glance upward at the inventor's concerned face.

"What happened?" Doc asked.

Marty swallowed hard. It was no use. Doc would just keep badgering him until he got him to spill his secret. "Jennifer dumped me," he whispered as his eyes drifted downward.

Doc looked genuinely surprised at the revelation. "When did this happen?" he asked.

"Right before you called," Marty said. He wriggled his arm from Doc's grasp and shoved the remainder of the tools in the toolbox. He stood up and quickly lifted the heavy item up onto Doc's worktable.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" Doc said. "I wouldn't have asked you to come over here this afternoon had I known about your situation."

"Don't worry about it," Marty said, the tone of his voice indicating that he didn't want to discuss the matter further.

Doc took the hint. He stood up and patted Marty's shoulder. "Things will work out for the best," he said.

Marty cleared his throat. "Would you mind if I cut out of here early? I'm not really up to working today."

Doc understood completely. "Do you need a ride home?"

Marty shook his head as he grabbed his skateboard and opened the front door. "See you tomorrow," he said and he left.

Hill Valley High School Gymnasium

Saturday, September 15, 1984

8:00 p.m.

Marty watched as his classmates filed into the gym for the annual upperclassmen's "Welcome Back" dance. He didn't know how he had let his friend, Chase, talk him into coming to this thing. He would rather have shut himself in his room and not bothered with the whole affair.

School had started the previous Tuesday and it had been the longest two weeks of his life. It wasn't bad enough that he had lost his girlfriend, but now he was forced to share most of his class schedule with her. They even had the same lunch. Everytime Marty saw her avert her eyes when he entered a room, he felt like someone was pouring salt into a fresh wound. How would he ever get over Jennifer if he couldn't even get away from her?

Initially, their friends had been shocked by the news. Most of them hadn't even found out what had happened until the first day of school when the rumors started to circulate. Marty's friends had been sympathetic and offered words of encouragement. Even one of Jennifer's close friends had offered her condolences, a move which surprised Marty. He and Jennifer didn't really share any mutual friends and he naturally assumed her friends would side with her by default.

"You're a really great guy, Marty," Liza had said as she stood by Marty's locker before school one morning. "Nina's been filling Jen's head with all kinds of shit about how she'll regret it if she doesn't play the field and only stays with one person her whole life. Jen just kind of fell into it, I guess. It's not fair, because you really don't deserve that. I tried to tell her she was throwing away a good thing, but she wouldn't listen. I'm sorry, Marty."

"Nina's standard lecture on how to nail ten guys in as many days?" Marty said sardonically.

"Yeah, that's it," Liza said as she tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear and rolled her eyes. "Nina even fixed Jen up with one of her "friends" for the dance. I can't believe she agreed to go out with Jerry. He's an obnoxious pervert and not her type at all. I think she just agreed to go out with him to shut Nina up." She looked thoughtfully at Marty as he rummaged for his notebook. "So, who are you bringing to the dance?"

"I don't think I'm going," Marty said. "I'm really not in the mood for a party."

"I understand, but it won't be the same without you. You know if you want to talk or hang out, just look me up. Okay?"

Marty managed a weak smile. "Thanks, but I'll be okay," he lied. The bell rang then, saving him from continuing the discussion. "I've got to get to Geometry. See you around!" He rushed off before she could reply. He appreciated Liza's support, but she sounded as though she was about three seconds from catching him on the rebound and he was in no shape to begin dating again.

Seventh period biology lab was especially excruciating for Marty as he and Jennifer were forced to be lab partners. The anal retentive crone of a teacher was a stickler for assigned seating in alphabetical order. If Jennifer was bothered by this arrangement, she didn't show it. She only talked to Marty when the subject pertained to the class work and ignored him the rest of the time. Marty wished he could be as blasé about the whole thing. Try as he might, he couldn't make his jumbled mess of a brain focus on the work. When he was near Jennifer he could only think of the harsh words that she had said to him. His participation grade was slipping lower every day and he knew he had flunked the test that he had taken that afternoon. He sighed as he leaned back against the wall of the gymnasium. _What a Hell of a way to start the year,_ he thought.

Marty saw Jennifer walk into the gymnasium. He had to admit that she looked good. She wore a scoop neck blue shirt and a denim skirt and it looked like she had used a curling iron on her already wavy hair. However, something was wrong with this picture. Jennifer Parker came in alone. She saw Marty looking at her and immediately walked off toward the other side of the room.

Marty kept watching the door, thinking that maybe her date was just parking the car or something. He kept a lookout for about fifteen more minutes and when he didn't see anyone joining his ex-girlfriend, he new that there was no date.

"Looks like she struck out, man!" Chase said, smirking as he joined Marty by the wall. "Serves the bitch right after what she did to you!"

Marty whirled around to face his best friend with fire in his eyes. "Shut your face! She isn't a bitch and if you call her that again, I'll pound your face in!"

Chase was momentarily stunned by Marty's outburst, but he quickly recovered and he started laughing. "Look who's carrying the torch for her! Well, there she is," Chase said, gesturing toward the far side of the gym where Jennifer was talking with a friend. "Go ask her to dance."

Marty took a step, but he froze. He didn't know how to approach her. God, it felt like freshman year all over again! Jennifer stood by the wall talking to Liza, presumably about the jerk that had stood her up.

_The same wall where we first met,_ Marty mused silently. _"How ironic."_

Marty spent most of the evening watching as his friends had fun with their dates. It was a creepy form of déjà vu. However, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn't work up the nerve to walk over to Jennifer and ask that simple little question. He had already heard the worst from her lips. Would a no really kill him?

Finally, the DJ announced that they were about to play the last song of the evening. Marty knew he had to act now or he would miss his chance indefinitely.

The song came on and the opening chords made Marty's chest tighten. He recognized the song as the one playing at the restaurant during the seemingly perfect night of their last date. Marty could hear the song's lyrics over the din of the gymnasium. Was that the song a foreshadowing of their relationship? Marty had to know.

He walked purposefully across the gymnasium with his heart in his throat. He expected Jennifer to dress him down in front of everyone for even thinking of this. As he approached her, she didn't even look his way and Marty almost lost his nerve.

"_Hey!, if we can solve any problem  
Then why do we lose so many tears?"_

"Do you want to dance?" Marty asked, his voice rushed by nerves.

"_Oh, and so you go again  
When the leading man appears."_

Jennifer spun around. Marty couldn't tell if she looked surprised or angry and he hoped that it wasn't the latter. She just stared at him, making Marty even wonder if she thought he was even worth a dressing down. His face turn red and a lump started to form in his throat.

"Fine, forget I asked," Marty said softly, turning to walk away.

"Marty, don't go!" Jennifer said, her voice stopping Marty in his tracks. He turned around, shock clearly written on his face. She held out her hand to him and he took it, leading her out onto the dance floor.

They danced like they were strangers, standing far apart. To Marty, it felt more awkward than the night that they first met. That night seemed like a lifetime ago and, but, in a way, it felt like only yesterday.

"I didn't think you would ever come over," Jennifer said after a long silence.

Marty could only stare at her in bewilderment. "The last I knew, you didn't want anything to do with me."

"I know and I was wrong about that," Jennifer said. "But, I didn't know how to tell you. I thought that you were angry with me and you wouldn't want me back. Then, I let too much time pass and I felt I didn't have the right to try to get you back. I was afraid that you would tell me I had my chance and reject me."

"I am angry, Jennifer, or, at least, I was," Marty said. "I guess I'm more hurt than anything else. I can't understand why you thought we needed any time apart. I thought we were doing so well!"

"My reasons sounded so good two weeks ago," Jennifer replied, her voice breaking. "I can't believe how selfish I was in letting Nina talk me into dumping you. You know that guy she fixed me up with for this thing? Jerry? Marty nodded. "Well, he stood me up to come here with his bimbo of the week. He's over there by the punchbowl," she said gesturing toward the adjacent wall with her head.

Marty couldn't resist a peek. "The guy in the gray suit?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jen said. He's a senior and a creep. All he can think of is sex. He is definitely more Nina's type than mine. I didn't know what a good thing I had until I gave it up. Marty, I am so sorry for hurting you. I don't suppose you would want to give me another chance and try this relationship again."

Marty looked at her for a long moment. "On one condition," he said. "If you ever feel like this again, you have to talk to me about it before making any hasty decisions. Deal?"

"Deal," Jennifer said with a smile. Marty pulled her close and they sealed their agreement with a long kiss.

THE END

c.2004 - 2006


End file.
